Mullvad VPN vs NordVPN 2020

NordVPN and Mullvad both fall in the top VPN service provider’s categories. It’s because of this that many subscribers have a tough time trying to distinguish between the two. If you’re also struggling to make this decision, the following comparisons will go a long way in helping you out.

However, before we get to the essential details, there are a few things which you’ll need to remember. First, Mullvad is a privacy-based VPN from Sweden. Its primary aim is to provide its clients with solid encryptions and a safe online environment with no connection logs.

Second, NordVPN is one of the best overall VPN services that we’ve reviewed. They excel in security, anonymity, speed, bypassing geo blocks and just about every other important feature you might want in a VPN. More Info

How do these VPNs Compare?

How to use this chart

Why do we feel that NordVPN has a better pricing model? Well, although Mullvad is as simple as it can be, it’s somewhat costly, and it doesn’t offer any discounts if you wish to make a prolonged subscription. Despite this, you’ll still get a 10% discount if you decide to pay using Bitcoin. It also allows other forms of payment such as bank wire, PayPal, and Swish. You can use Vouchers too. Additionally, it also offers a 30-day cash-refund guarantee a well as a 3-hour free trial period.

On the other hand, Nord offers a fantastic 3-day trial period and a free yearly plan too. Furthermore, it has three payment plans for one month, six months and one year. However, just like Mullvad, it provides all its customers with a 30-day money-back payment guarantee.

Speed

After testing Mullvad using different servers, we noticed a few things. For instance, the European locations gave us excellent rates, and at some point, we forgot we were using a VPN. However, when it came to transatlantic servers, it was quite slow. Despite this, we were still able to download and stream content reasonably fast.

Do you love gaming? If you do, then NordVPN is our recommended service. Its low level of latency is something which many gamers love. The only challenge with this VPN is that you’ll have to wait for maybe 13 seconds for it to connect to a decent server.

Why Most Speed Tests are Pointless & How We Correctly Test VPN Speeds

Speed determines how fast content uploads, so if you're torrenting or streaming, you want the speed to be somewhat identical to your regular internet speed. Since a VPN encrypts your data, it usually takes a bit longer to send your data back and forth, which can slow down your connection. However, if your ISP deliberately slows down your connection (also known as throttling) a VPN might increase your internet speed. Testing a VPN is somewhat pointless because new servers pop up and affect speed. Your speed can also differ according to your location, so your speed test might not match ours. Having said that, we tested the speed in numerous locations to provide you with the average.

Servers

The NordVPN has several servers which are suitable for downloading torrents plus they also have unlimited bandwidth. It has over 4,600 servers in 60+ countries, unlike Mullvad which is not clear on the number of servers it provides its customers.

The Big Mistake When Comparing Number of Servers and What to Really Look For

The ratio of servers to countries is an important factor to look at when choosing a VPN. Only paying attention to location or number of servers can get you in trouble. More servers generally means faster speeds, but if VPN X has a few more servers than VPN Y but twice as many users, VPN X will typically have slower speeds. Ideally, you want a VPN that has a lot of servers in every location. This way you won’t have to worry that server/country that you want will be overburdened and running slow

Support

Here is another area in which Mullvad struggles a lot. It has no live chat system, no official website, and the only way you can reach out to their support staff is through email. Furthermore, their reaction time is quite slow. As for Nord, you have a lot of communication services to choose from. You can talk to their staff either by email or through their 24/7 live chat system. You can even go through their FAQ, and hopefully, you’ll find a suitable solution to your problem.

How We Test Customer Support and Why Should You Care

We personally test the customer support team of every VPN we review. This means asking technical question through the live chat feature (where applicable) and measuring the response time for email questions. Whether you need to connect to a specific server, change your security protocol, or configure a VPN on your router, finding a VPN with quality customer support should be important to you.

Ease of Use

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Nord is a reliable VPN as it doesn’t store your browsing history. It also has an attractive design and unique website layout. With it, you can unblock Geo-restricted streaming sites like Netflix at no additional costs.

It also works perfectly on different operating systems whether you’re using a laptop, tablet, desktop or smartphone to access any content. We should also highlight the fact that it uses strong ciphers and security protocols such as OpenVPN, and the 256-bit AES double encryption.

Just like Nord, this VPN neither keeps your connection logs nor does it track your online activity. It also uses the OpenVPN protocol which is the quickest security service available today. Its value for privacy means that it has some of the best security features as compared to Nord.

The service secures your connection with the RSA-4096 handshake, HMAC SHA-1 hash authentication, and AES-256-GCM. It even has a Hellman DNE-4096 key exchange for better secrecy and is re-sett within intervals of 60-minutes. Sadly though, despite such impressive security protocols, it can’t access content from a popular site like Netflix.

Which VPN Will You Choose?

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